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Wind energy is considered one of the cleanest and most sustainable resources among renewable energy sources. However, several negative environmental impacts can be observed, unless suitable sites are selected for the establishment of wind farms. The aim of this study is to determine the change in the soil organic carbon (SOC) stock resulting from land cover changes that were caused by wind farm establishments in the Karaburun peninsula. Within the scope of the study, remote sensing and geographic information system technologies were utilized. Maximum likelihood algorithm, one of the supervised classification techniques, was used to classify the land cover, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) analyses were performed to determine land cover changes. The findings were correlated with the "Turkey Soil Organic Carbon Project" data. As a result, depending on the establishment of wind farms in the Karaburun Peninsula, a total decrease of 18,330.57 tons of SOC in the study area between 2000 and 2019 was determined. It should be taken into consideration that besides many other negative effects (effects on human health, effects on the ecosystem, effects on animals, etc.), land cover changes caused by wind farms may indirectly cause important problems such as climate change. Recently, this situation shows that there is an important dilemma in terms of current implementations. Wind farms are the most invested renewable energy sources and alternative energy supply to fossil fuels in terms of preventing climate change. However, the results of this study have reviewed that lack of proper approaches and methods to establish wind farms may result in various problems such as physical, chemical, and biological degradations and an increase in the amount of atmospheric carbon. Consequently, the investments in renewable energy sources should be comprehensively reevaluated in terms of current technologies, quality in the scope of environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment processes, legal regulations and national policies, long-term environmental costs, etc.

The study presents a new methodology to quantify spatiotemporal dynamics of climate change vulnerability at a regional scale adopting a new conceptual model of vulnerability as a function of climate change impacts, ecological stability, and socioeconomic stability. Spatiotemporal trends of equally weighted proxy variables for the three vulnerability components were generated to develop a composite climate change vulnerability index (CCVI) for a Mediterranean region of Turkey combining Landsat time series data, digital elevation model (DEM)-derived data, ordinary kriging, and geographical information system. Climate change impact was based on spatiotemporal trends of August land surface temperature (LST) between 1987 and 2016. Ecological stability was based on DEM, slope, aspect, and spatiotemporal trends of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), while socioeconomic stability was quantified as a function of spatiotemporal trends of land cover, population density, per capita gross domestic product, and illiteracy. The zones ranked on the five classes of no-to-extreme vulnerability were identified where highly and moderately vulnerable lands covered 0.02% (12 km2) and 11.8% (6374 km2) of the study region, respectively, mostly occurring in the interior central part. The adoption of this composite CCVI approach is expected to lead to spatiotemporally dynamic policy recommendations towards sustainability and tailor preventive and mitigative measures to locally specific characteristics of coupled ecological-socioeconomic systems.

The Paris Agreement (PA), which is an important step toward mitigating climate change, has ascribed new responsibilities to the signatory parties that differ from those of the Kyoto Protocol (KP). This study is focused on the new responsibilities and the reasons why Turkey has not yet assigned the agreement into its own domestic law, although it was signed on April 22, 2016. There are several political and legal reasons for this, but the most important is Turkey's membership in the OECD as a developed country. Besides, developing countries shall be supported by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) at a $100 billion budget per year. Turkey needs GCF support in terms of technology transfer, capacity building, and financial in order to achieve the agreement's goals. Turkey has demanded privileged status similar to the one in the KP, i.e., whether or not to be deemed as a developed country.The core aim of the PA is to keep global temperature increases below 20 °C by the year 2030, insomuch as to limit temperature increases even further to 1.50 °C. This goal depends on the mitigation of CO2 levels, which means that countries should mitigate GHG emissions caused by deforestation and take further actions by primarily abandoning fossil fuels, improving/attaching importance to energy efficiency, and changing/improving land use planning. Within this context, the second part of the study analyzes the efficiency level of forestry legislation and Turkey's climate policies in terms of the responsibilities to be assigned by the PA. The analysis is based on the question as to what extent the Turkish forestry legislation fulfills the responsibilities ascribed by the PA for preventing deforestation. Consequently, it has been concluded that eight criteria determined by the PA are not adequately included in the Turkish forestry legislation and shall require an amendment on a large scale, particularly when Turkey is deemed as a developed country.

The relationship between the built environment and climate change has been discussed from many perspectives. This study examines the effect of the built environment on climate change indicators in Turkish provinces over the last 18 years, contributing to the literature on built environment analyses regarding both urban and rural areas, unlike other studies that have focused mostly on urban areas. The study discusses the changes in climate indicators using maps and analyzes the effects of the built environment on climate change using linear regression. The results indicate that provinces in Türkiye have experienced climate change effects such as increased annual mean temperature, maximum temperature, maximum precipitation, extreme weather events, and drought. These effects differed both in terms of geography and the subperiods over the examined period. The results also demonstrate the increase in the built environment to have a positive correlation with the increases in annual maximum temperature and the annual number of extreme weather events. The built environment in Türkiye increased 63% between 1990 and 2018, and the average number of extreme weather events per province increased from 0.3 to 8 over this same period. At the same time, the average annual mean temperature increased from 12.9 to 15.1 °C, the average maximum temperature went up from 24.6 to 25.8 °C, the average annual maximum precipitation increased from 125.6 to 157.7 mm, and the average number of dry months per year increased from 3.4 to 3.8.

AbstractThis study investigated Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and turbidity removal from paper mill industry wastewater via Fe2+/heat‐activated persulfate oxidation. A mathematical model was developed, and the process variables (pH, reaction time, PS/COD, Fe2+ concentration for Fe2+‐activated PS, and temperature for heat‐activated PS) were optimized using the Response Surface Methodology and Central Composite Design methods. Under the optimum conditions, respectively, 70.9 and 99.4% COD and turbidity removal efficiencies were obtained for Fe2+‐activated PS oxidation, while 56.1 and 98.9% COD and turbidity removal efficiencies were determined for heat‐activated PS oxidation. The results indicated that both processes are efficient for paper mill industry wastewater treatment, and central composite design is an appropriate method for designing and optimizing process parameters.

This paper presents an analysis of the electricity generation from municipal solid waste (MSW), via landfill gas valorization technology, at the landfill of Gaziantep City, Turkey. Rapid increase in population, and industrial developments, throughout the world including Turkey results in larger amount of waste materials generated, increased need for energy, and adverse affects on the environment and human health. Turkey plans to produce 1/3 of its electricity demand using renewable energy sources by the year of 2023. It is recommended to use each year around 25 million tonnes of the MSW generated nationwide for a renewable energy supply. In this study, a concise summary of current status of electricity generation from a MSW landfill gas plant (via biogas harnessing) located in Gaziantep City was analyzed as a case study.

This paper presents the findings of experimental investigations regarding the influence of 13 different flux enhancing chemicals (FeCl3, polyaluminium chloride, 2 chitosans, 5 synthetic polymers, 2 starches and 2 activated carbons) on respirometric characteristics and nitrification/denitrification performance of membrane bioreactor (MBR) mixed liquor. Flux enhancing chemicals are a promising method to reduce the detrimental effects of fouling phenomena via the modification of mixed liquor characteristics. However, potentially inhibiting effects of these chemicals on mixed liquor biological activity triggered the biokinetic studies (in jar tests) conducted in this work. The tested polyaluminium chloride (PACl) strongly impacted on nitrification (-16%) and denitrification rate (-43%). The biodegradable nature of chitosan was striking in endogenous and exogenous tests. Considering the relatively high costs of this chemical, an application for wastewater treatment does thus not seem to be advisable. Also, addition of one of the tested activated carbons strongly impacted on the oxygen uptake rate (-28%), nitrification (-90%) and denitrification rate (-43%), due to a decrease of pH. Results show that the changes in kLa values were mostly not significant, however, a decrease of 13% in oxygen transfer was found for sludge treated with PACl.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to ensure the preservation and sustainability of traditional water mills in Turkey with their original function and to allow these water mills to become heritage for future generations. Design/methodology/approach The study is the original examination of one sample water mill to be conserved, that is chosen from 11 water mills that were determined after the investigation of water mills in of Antalya, in Mediterranean Region. A preliminary study was first performed using the external observation method on 11 horizontal wheel water mills. The water mills to be accorded the highest priority with regards to conservation were selected based on their characteristics. Restoration techniques were then proposed to ensure the sustainability of the traditional production systems while retaining their original function. Findings The decision of water mill with the highest priority of conservation is based on the analysis of “structural damage,” “all seasons accessibility” and “supporting environmental factors.” This water mill was used primarily for grain production and is located on the Doyran River in Antalya. Current circumstance of the sample mill is analyzed, restoration techniques for the purpose of conservation and creation of recreational sites and that enable the presentation of traditional production methods are suggested. Social implications This paper includes implications for the contribution to the region’s cultural identity by developing the region’s infrastructure for cultural and ecological tourism and by ensuring the continuation of traditional production methods and craftsmanship. Originality/value This paper brings a new approach to the identification of water mills and the decision of the water mills to be conserved as a result of field studies.

South Africa is one of Africa's most polluted countries, with rising CO2 emissions posing a threat. South Africa must discover ways of minimizing pollution and take necessary steps before it is too late in order to achieve sustainable growth. For this purpose, this research assesses the ecological consequences of globalization, nonrenewable energy use, economic growth and renewable energy consumption in South Africa. The study leverages on the non-linearity advantages of the novel quantile on quantile regression (QQR) method for a robust analysis as opposed to the use of conventional linear approaches, thereby overcoming conspicuous shortfalls in extant studies, while offering a detailed explanation of the overall dependency structure between CO2 emissions and globalization, nonrenewable energy use and renewable energy use using a dataset covering the period between 1970 and 2018. The outcomes suggest that nonrenewable energy use, globalization, and economic growth contribute to environmental degradation in the majority of the quantiles, while the effect of renewable energy use on CO2 is not strong at all quantiles. The study highlights that economic expansion, nonrenewable energy use and globalization play key roles in in mitigating environmental sustainability in South Africa, while renewable energy is not sufficient to meet environmental requirements.